We are at the monastery where Ledi Sayadaw passed away in Pyinmana, Myanmar. It just so happens that many other people had the same idea is us! Tonight a very famous monk is giving a discourse on meditation instructions and many people from far and wide came to hear.
#ledisayadaw#pyinmana#naypyidaw#naypyitaw#dhamma#myanmarlife

I almost didn’t go to Yangon, thinking it’d be like any other Southeast Asian city. And at first, with the traffic and chaos, it felt like it was.
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Luckily, of my 25 hours there, I spent 5 with @unchartedhorizonsmyanmar - cycling some 30 kilometres through a rural village where locals still live in wooden houses on stilts, surrounded by mangroves, pagodas, temples, mosques and churches. In white shirts and green skirts, their cute little faces covered in thanaka (a natural paste), kids walked to school. In their backyards, women whipped up bowls of mohinga (noodles in fish broth - staple breakfast) and cooked dosa (the Indian Burmese were first brought here by the British). The small markets buzzed with activity, locals drank tea at the street stalls, men ferried passengers at the boat dock, the streets echoed with mingalaba as we cycled through. Past the plastic dump, we landed up at the workshop of a social enterprise that upcycles waste to make really cool bags, bookmarks, lamps and baskets.
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Then we got onto a small boat with our bicycles, and landed up on a river island, 5 km in circumference, no cars. Chatted briefly with the 84-year-old head monk of the island monastery, saw monks out to collect alms and stopped for a tea leaf salad in a little house shop.
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Nope, Yangon is not like any other Southeast Asian city; it’s not like any other city at all.
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📷: Shot on #iphonexsmax ; edited for the sepia feeling this bicycle trip in Yangon left me with 🚴🏽‍♀️
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#theshootingstar#myanmartravel#yangonlife#slowtravel#unchartedhorizonsmyanmar